World-wide, National Sports Associations (NSA’s) and continental federations have been transitioning into a standard name that simply states the country or continent and the sport.

Here in the Philippines, many NSA’s have completed the process or will be going into that, one of them is a sport that has a special place in my heart simply because of the long time I have worked with its NSA since the early 90’s to pre pandemic times,.

In fact the Subic International Triathlon, now on its 30th year and the longest running major sporting event here was one of my favorite events to cover even as I helped out the organizing group behind, the Triathlon Association of the Philippines which still remains as TRAP as of now.

After all, Tom Carrasco , the man credited with the development of triathlon to what it is now, is a dear old friend, older friend actually, I met him when he was still in the road running scene with Jun Castro.

I had not seen Tom for quite some time since the pandemic and my quad by pass in 2021 has limited my driving so I have not been to Subic for the SUBIT race the past two years.

And the sad part, when I met him recently, it was at the wake of his grand daughter, 11 year old Anika, and I know how it has affected him and wife Lulu, Tom being the indulgent ” Lolo” as described by Lulu, whom he in turn introduces as the ” Speaker of the House.”

It was there that I got a lot of updates about the sport and learned about Tom’s new role, for one, he is not the NSA President nor SecGen anymore but remains on the Board as a director , replacing him anew as prexy is old time friend too, Ramon Marchan while SecGen is Sarita Zafra, both good people and have bern with triathlon for a long time.

So what will Tom’s new focus be?

Well, last June in Japan, he was elected Vice President of the Asia Triathlon with Prince Hamed from Saudi Arabia, who in recognution of Tom’s well deserved reputation as a sports leader and event organizer, the Prince appointed Tom as Senior VP and tasked too with heading its recent strategic planning session.

Truth is, being in the regional ruling body of the sport, even with the international federation is not really new, Tom has been there in the post in various senior positions, but this time, Tom will be more focused on the regional side and allow Mon and Sarita to helm the local NSA.

In particular, Tom wants to do more for para triathlon with the backing of the Prince who heads both the regular and the para sides of triathlon in his country.

And Tom has asked if I could assist him on this area together with Anthony Lozada, the coach of our paratri team.

Prior to the pandemic, Tom put me as interim Philippine Paratriathlon Committe head and together with his team, we did the initial moves to strengthen paratriathlon here though it remains an uphill climb up to now.

And how can I say No to my old friend?

On another front, I got a call from a late 70’s road racer Dino Jose, now based again in the United States, he has returned here in the past and held runnibg events including two editions of the Manila Marathon nee Manila International Marathon of the late Elpi Dorotheo’s time, in 2012 and 2015.

Now Dino wants to do a bigger one come February 2024 and he is willing to put up his personal money into the event, and with the resurgence of road running here, his target of 3,000 runners in various distances is very reachable.

He was asking if I could also help him in whatever way, and like in the case of Tom, how can I also turn my back on the sport that I was actually into so many pounds and black hair ago.

Looks like life is becoming more interesting for me at this stage of my life.